Knowing
by CaraM
Summary: companion to Bizarre. Rogue's side.


What I am trying to do here is tell both sides of the same story. Not a novel idea I know, but I got to thinking about it and Rogue needs to have her say. She is, after all, a passionate southerner, and demands it.

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I wish I could say that it isn't my fault he took such drastic measures. I wish that when I looked in the mirror my eyes wouldn't betray my own guilt. More than anything I guess, I wish that he was here.

I have realized since then that I deserve my guilt. I tried very hard to put the blame on something in him rather than my own faults, but late at night when I see his eyes, those demonic, hypnotizing eyes, I know it isn't his fault. I see them now and I know.

I've been pretending to the others that I am ok, but I think they're beginning to see through the charade. In a smile, or a glance…even the inflection of certain words, I betray my guilt and they know too. Things were so much simpler before we were able to touch. Ignorance is bliss as they say and damn if they aren't right. Before I used to pretend what it would be like to touch him, taste him, envelope myself in him, and felt robbed. After I was finally able to know, not just guess, but know what it felt like to be that close, and that knowledge kills me. I know what he feels like underneath my finger tips; hard and warm, just like a man should feel. I know that his taste is a combination of smoke and musk, and I know that his kiss is something I can't live without, not after I have glutted myself on it and swam in its passion. How ironic that knowing would be my downfall when I always assumed that it would be my ignorance. Too much like Eve in the Garden of Eden for my taste.

This knowledge damned me to bitter remembrance, even when he was right there telling me that he loved me. Him standing there, frustrated, wanting nothing more than to kiss me, made me hate him for the temptation that he was. Sometimes I think that Gambit has such a dominant masochistic streak that he was inevitably attracted to me because I was the one that could offer the most pain. There is no shortage of beauty at the mansion and still he picks the one girl that can't fulfill his needs. He had plenty of warning, and it isn't like I flirted with him any more than I do all the men around here, but he couldn't resist the idea of using me to feed his sick obsession with redemption. The frustration and pain he received from loving someone he was unable to touch somehow appeased his guilt. But like I said it wasn't his fault.

I know that my mother tortured him with temptations in my form. I can't honestly say that had I been in the same situation I wouldn't have given in, but damn it, love should mean more than just the body and its needs. The cheap substitutions we accept in lieu of what we really want. And I know that had I not been so frustrated he wouldn't have done it…I hope he wouldn't have done it. I almost handed him to her on a silver platter with my insecurity.

I know that his love is something not easily given and yet at every opportunity I threw it back at him like so much garbage. I made him believe that my love was something that he needed to earn. How was I any better than his stupid Guild and its various trials, making him go through therapy with a woman he could barely stand, making him wait patiently like a good little boy while I sorted through my own emotional shit? The truth is Gambit was always someone I dragged through the trenches to prove his love. I sometimes wonder if I would do the same with another man, or if it is just him.

I know that he isn't coming back. How could he after all that's happened? I sit in his room and stare at the simplicity surrounding me. Gambit never was able to settle in one place, even the mansion, and the bare walls are void of any insight in to its former occupant. His room is almost generic and I know that he did this, whether consciously or unconsciously, because he knew that he wouldn't last here. I sit and I wonder if any place could truly feel like home to him. Once upon a time I thought we were home in each other. Now I know better. Home is solace from the judgment of the outside world and I never gave him that. My real fear is that I can't give him that, that I will never get that chance again.

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End file.
